won't you stay shotgun til' i die?
by raffinit
Summary: We see the road Joel and Tommy take travelling up from Texas to Boston. It's a long road; ever wondered what they did that Tommy has nightmares about? How Tess and Joel met? Origins story.
1. Chapter 1

**A 5-part Origins story about Joel and Tommy's journey to Boston, and meeting Tess.**

**Obviously they would've had to travel a good distance, if they've come from Texas to Boston, so here's my take.**

* * *

Boston isn't the first quarantine zone he goes to. It's not even the second. Coming so far up from Texas is tedious and exhausting - Joel and Tommy start off in Tennessee; the closest one they could get to. It takes a little bit of wheedling, begging, and maybe some cold-hearted savagery, but Joel gets them into the QZ.

He even finds them jobs.

"Better than sittin' around and starin' at the fuckin' ceiling," Joel growls at Tommy one day, when his younger brother seems to lack enough appreciation for his liking. He can't stand the thought of sitting idle all day; not with a mind like his. With memories just waiting to come clawing back at him like a nightmare.

He finds work, and he does it well. They've left their home and their families back in Texas.

Joel's left a part of him there as well.

It died alongside Sarah.

They pick up odd jobs here and there; enough to keep them alive, but not much else. They've got the clothes on their backs and a place to rest their head, and maybe sometimes they go a little hungry, but never for long. Joel settles things.

He always settles things.

As far as he knows, they're the last of their bloodline. He plans on keeping it alive by any means necessary.

Rumor spreads around the zone about a group of survivors gone rogue; 'hunters' they were calling themselves - ruthless, lethal killers who took lives and rations and anything else they wanted.

It isn't the best of ways, but in a world like theirs now; there's no such thing as a right way.

Tommy is suspicious from the very first day Joel comes home with a box of goods - food, ammo, clothes. "Where the fuck did you get these?" he demands, pacing the small apartment frantically already; almost dizzying himself into a panic. "Huh? Where'd you get 'em, Joel? You sure as hell didn't get 'em from work!"

"What's it matter how I got 'em?" Joel snarls back; loads his brand new Colt semi-automatic. He's hardly unscathed, bleeding here and there and bruising a little but it's just another battle wound that'll fade away in time. "You're still alive, ain't you? You ain't gone hungry yet, have you?"

This only distresses Tommy even more; Joel wonders if he's going to rip at his hair. "I'd rather starve and die an honest man than live with the blood of the innocent on my hands!" he sputters, and Joel almost wants to laugh at his younger brother.

"These weren't innocent people, Tommy," he utters coldly, and holsters his gun. "And we are not honest men anymore." He shoves the box across the counter to his brother, his eyes steely black as Tommy glances into its contents. "You either learn to accept that and fucking survive, or you might as well lay on your back like a dog."

Tommy storms off in a flurry, and Joel lets him leave even though desperately inside he wants to trail after the man, beat him over the head a little and knock some sense into him because you don't fucking storm out of a fucking apartment unarmed.

Not in a world like this.

But he's tired and sore, so Joel lays himself down quietly on his own little ratty mattress, and tries to find some rest.

His Colt sits tucked into his jeans, safety on.

Tommy comes back a while later, shaking hard and pale as a ghost. Joel opens his mouth to ask what happened, but Tommy drops a box of something at his feet, and when he speaks his words come out in a horrible quiver. "There's your fuckin' dog."

He doesn't speak to Joel for the next two days, and when he does finally, Joel knows that there's a part of his brother that he's taken away too.

But at least he'll keep breathing.

* * *

He's a good Hunter.

So good he's terrified of it.

He's always been good with a gun, good with his aim; with his bare hands when he needs to be. Joel is a force to be reckoned with when he wants to be, and it is horrifying to think about. The way he can look a person in the eye, dead straight in the eye, and put a bullet between his eyes a split second later is not for most people.

Hell, most of the Hunters like killing from a distance - close range is a frightening endeavor, but Joel will march up to whomever it is he's hunting, and breaks bones to get what he needs.

The Hunters are afraid of Joel.

Tommy is afraid of Joel.

Afraid, and disgusted with his own brother.

Being a Hunter means they have to travel. They can't stay in one place for too long; soldiers have a bounty on Joel's head already, so they hit the road again.

Just the two of them.

Same as before.

They hit the D.C. QZ for a little while - barely there long enough to find a decent place to stay before Joel's hauling Tommy back into the car and pounding the gas pedal into the floor to avoid the hail of bullets coming after them. One bullet breaks through the back windshield and nicks Tommy on the arm, but he lives.

At that moment Joel isn't sure who he's more upset with. Himself for letting Tommy get in the way of harm, or Tommy for not ducking like he told him to.

He doesn't think to linger on it for long. There's no use pointing fingers anymore with a brother who won't look him in the eye without anything less than disgust or scorn.

At the very least, Joel consoles himself with knowing that he doesn't see the hate in Tommy's eyes.

Not yet.


	2. Chapter 2

**We meet Tess yayyyy**

* * *

New Jersey seems like a place they can settle in.

Everything's not as hectic here; people aren't as brutal or desperate. There's a strange way they go about their business, a seedy sort of covert operations happening underground that sits underneath an eerily calm facade.

The calm seems to soothe Tommy; it unsettles Joel.

"Somethin' ain't right here," he murmurs one day, when they're out on a quiet patrol to scope out the zone. Joel doesn't like hunting on unfamiliar grounds, and even he with his flawed sense of survivalism - he can't stand the thought of raiding someone's home where they had loved ones and families and people to protect.

People he killed were loners and survivors too. Desperate men who would have killed him first if he had given them the chance.

All Tommy sees is their bodies on the ground, and theirs not.

Tommy shrugs, peering around the corner of a desolate building; reeling in when the spotlight travels over them. "What? Not enough bloodshed for you, Joel?" he retorts snidely, and Joel scowls at the back of his head as they move off along the walkway in the shadows.

"You think I do this for fun?" he growls, ducking under a fallen door and slipping through the corridors of the building down into where they keep their stash. Tommy's fiddling with the door, and Joel's patience runs thin enough that he kicks the door in with little fanfare.

"Jesus, Joel," Tommy hisses, after he recovers from the initial shock of having his brother's boot slam not two inches away from his fingers. "You ain't some kind of rhino bull, chargin' up and down places."

Joel's shoulders rise up like hackles, and he whirls to his brother with a seething snarl. "You been ridin' on my ass since we left Tennessee, and I'm sick and tired of it." He shoves Tommy against the shelves, bristling as the shelves tremble precariously. Leaning in close, he bares his teeth at his brother; his eyes blazing almost unnaturally.

"You got a problem with me keepin' us alive, Tommy, you man the fuck up and you say it to my fuckin' face."

Surprisingly though Tommy shoves him back, glaring indignantly at him as Joel stumbles back. "What're you gonna do if I don't, huh, Joel? You gonna gun me down too?" He grabs his gun, pushes it up against his own temple, shaking. "Put a fucking bullet in my brain -?"

Joel snatches the gun out of his hands, throwing the thing across the room and slapping Tommy across the face harshly. "Get yourself together, god damn it," he grits, kicking the boxes aside as Tommy staggers. "We've come this far because of this. Because of what I did for us - you think I like killing people like this?" His voice rises louder, thunderous in the small room and hollow space.

"You think I like thinkin' about the lives I've had to end just to make sure you had enough to eat, to wear, - a place to sleep at night?"

"I never asked you to do any of that!" Tommy yells, gesturing frantically at their stash of things; the bloodstained rags they've used to clean their wounds or blood off their knives and guns. "I never asked you to treat me like a fuckin' kid all over again or - or turn into this goddamn _monster_ for me!"

It's as if Tommy's struck him physically; Joel doesn't think an actual blow would hurt as bad. "M-monster?" He steps back, away from Tommy, staring at the man wordlessly - what can he say, really? "You think I'm the monster in all this?"

Tommy laughs, and it's a cold, derisive thing. "You're a Hunter, aren't you? Even the goddamn infected don't kill for kicks like you do, Joel. And even then, they've got fuckin' _spores_ controllin' 'em." He shakes his head sadly, hand dropping back to his side. "What's your excuse, Joel?"

_Surviving_. He wants to say surviving is his excuse; it's the reason they're standing here having this conversation, but something in his chest only makes Joel stare wordlessly at Tommy, reeling. It sticks in his chest and throat like taffy; thick and cloying and Joel thinks he's going to be sick from the rage he's keeping inside him.

Finally he finds his voice and his feet, and zombielike; he moves to the door. "I-I just - I need to go. I just - I can't look at you right now, Tommy." He pulls the door away, glancing only for a fraction of a moment to his brother.

"I may be the monster in your mind, Tommy, and I gotta make peace with that - but I'm the monster that keeps the others away. Think about that."

He's gone by the time Tommy has anything else to say.

* * *

He's mad.

He's fucking _pissed_.

So angry he's getting lightheaded from thinking about it; from the blood that's pumping through his body, his brain, his fingertips. He doesn't know where he's going, what direction he's headed in and how far he's going away from the apartment - he doesn't care.

Can't care.

Who the fuck is Tommy to call him a monster? What right does he have to judge him and condemn him for the things he's willing to do to keep living? The world around them is falling apart; people don't function on the same morals anymore - so why should they?

He doesn't kill for fun, but Joel won't walk away from a fight like Tommy wants him to. To turn his back on confrontation and walk away like 'the bigger man'.

Who's to say he won't end up face down on the ground the moment his back is turned?

He has no plans of finding out.

Right now, he's looking for a fight. For unsuspecting runners or clickers to gun down or shiv; something to relieve the anger and frustration on.

Like the monster Tommy thinks he is.

Why should he deny what he's really become? Joel ducks down into an abandoned building - he can hear runners moving about inside, and he checks for his gun and hunting knife. Because this is who he is now - he is a beast, he has to be one. Only the strongest will survive.

...but what's the point, though?

What's he fighting for?

He ambushes a runner, a vicious warcry on his lips as he bashes open the infected's head with a brick. Blood and a gore and brain matter erupt and spatter on his shirt, but he's so blinded by the red haze of rage that he can't stand to give a shit.

_What am I fighting for?_

Another runner; this time it's with his hunting knife stabbed hard and deep into the neck - snapping the spine at the base. _Who am I doing all this for_?

There's a clicking sound from far off; Joel disposes of the twitching body and finds cover, rounding the corners and moving as swiftly and quietly as he can around the one clicker he can see ahead of him. It clicks and shrieks in the dark, whirling its head one way or another - searching.

It would be so easy to let it take him, wouldn't it? If he 'accidentally' tripped, or coughed in the dank air - it could end all this. All the worrying, the fighting, the waking to nightmares and gunfire and death.

It would be so easy to just _end it all._

_"Don't do it."_

What the hell -? The voice comes from down the hall, out from the window by the alleyway. It's a woman, that much he can tell, but Joel can't say if she's speaking to him or not. He strains for the voice again, listening close - the clicker has lost interest, and moves on.

The woman again; deadly serious - frightened? _"I'm serious, Sean. You got what you wanted - we can both walk away from this, nice and easy._"

Joel creeps in closer to the window, presses under it into the shadows. He can see the silhouette of a woman, young and thin - backed into a corner by three men. The reflection of the light on the glass obscures his view of her face, but from what he can see, she's much too young to be around that kind of company.

He crouches low, shifts position for a better angle. The gleam in their eyes makes his blood boil, and Joel can't explain why he feels as if he might want to rip their chests open with his bare hands and pull out their hearts. Shifting again, he feels his boot nudge a bottle; perfect.

'Sean' sneers at the woman, stepping forward mockingly. "Oh, you won't be walkin' nice and easy after I'm done with you."

Oh _hell_ no.

He comes upon them like a bat out of hell, snarling like a bear as he slams the bottle into the head of the man closest to him, barely flinching as the glass breaks before he's using the broken end to slice into the screaming man's carotid. He leaves him bleeding in a heap before he's on the next one, grabbing the stunned man's head in one hand and slamming it into the side of the building.

Two men are dead at his feet; there's only one left.

_Sean_.

He pauses in his step though, catches his breath and calms the storm of rage inside him when he realizes that this woman now has Sean in a chokehold. The muzzle of her gun is pressed to his forehead, and the man is stuttering frantically for forgiveness in her arms.

"H-hey, it-it's all in good fun, huh?" He smiles weakly, prying without hope at the woman's arm as she presses the muzzle hard enough to bruise. "It-it was just a joke, Tess, r-really. I swear I wasn't gonna -."

"What's the matter, Sean?" Tess coos, sliding the muzzle along the side of his face, slipping it down to his throat now. She smiles coldly, and Joel can feel a distinct chill run up his spine at the way it twists her pretty face. The quiver in her voice hasn't gone away just yet, but he can't discern if it's from rage or fear anymore.

"Can't take it like a man anymore now that a woman's in charge?" She slips from behind him, grabbing his throat in her hand and squeezing just hard enough for him to choke, and forces the barrel of her gun into his mouth. She cocks it calmly.

"Now be a good boy, and swallow."

Joel flinches when the gun goes off; the first time in a long time he's flinched at death, but he watches, marvels at the way this woman - Tess, if he heard right - kicks Sean's body aside. He watches the blood and skull and brain matter pool around her shoes, he can only think of one thing.

_Wow_.

She blows out a breath, and then the gun's aimed to his chest now. He surprises himself because he's not reaching for his gun; he's actually holding his hands up in surrender. Apparently it surprises Tess too. "You're either dumb as hell or you're not from around here." Her voice is low and sharp; lined around the edge with something he thinks to be humor - and it fascinates him.

Joel tilts his head thoughtfully. "Well, I'm sure as hell ain't from around here, so I guess that rules out the first one." He lowers his hands slowly, gesturing to the body at her feet. "Did he uh...did he hurt you? You alright, miss?" It strikes him suddenly that he wouldn't know what to do with himself if Sean had hurt her in some way; the man's dead already.

Could he desecrate a body like that? Maybe.

It depends.

Tess raises an eyebrow at him, and Joel thinks she's crazy when she smirks at him. "_Miss_?" She laughs, shaking her head; Joel feels the heat rush to his cheeks as he looks down at his shoes. "You really are from down South, aren't you, Texas?"

He frowns. "How'd you know I -?"

"Are you kidding me?" she retorts, rolling her eyes as she crouches down to search the bodies. "No one here has the balls to call me miss. I probably would've shot you if you'd called me _ma'am_." She makes a little sound of triumph when she finds Sean's Glock, inspecting the magazine and chamber before tucking it into the back of her jeans.

Joel tilts his head curiously, watching her move from body to body. He steps aside as she comes to the one at his feet, and he can't explain why but he's leaning back just a touch to appreciate the way she crouches down and leans over the body to grab at the guns.

He blinks when she straightens to her feet, clearing his throat awkwardly when she turns back to him. "I uh - I was just passin' through, and I heard voices so I came over to...investigate." It's the truth, but with the way Tess is looking at him, Joel feels like a schoolboy lying in front of his headmaster.

He finds his courage though then, and puffs out his chest just a little. "It's a good thing I did, too. They would've hurt you. Bad." The undertone isn't missed, and Tess scowls at him.

"I had it under control," she tells him hotly, but he can tell with the way her eyes blaze at him aggressively that she's not over it just yet - but she doesn't appreciate the reminder. She pulls back, eyeing Joel up and down for a moment before curling the corner of her mouth suspiciously.

"Thanks for the help, or whatever. Now get out of my face."

He hesitates. "Uh - which way you headed?"

Tess pauses in her step, glancing over her shoulder at him slowly. "Why?" she demands, and Joel swallows when he sees her hand flex over her gun.

He shrugs. "Figured if we were headed the same direction, I could...keep up with you for a little while. Uh...make sure you get home alright." In his mind he's making a face at himself and banging his head against a wall -_ this woman could shoot you where you stand, Joel and you wanna** walk her home**_?

Apparently yes.

Tess stares at him for a long moment, expression unreadable as Joel does what he can to stand there as earnestly as he can - even if he's just bashed someone's head against a wall and slit someone else's throat. Maybe it'll prove to her that he can keep her safe.

"That's how they really make you down in Texas, huh?" It's rhetorical, but Joel thinks to reply anyway, because it's true.

"We're a bit of a dyin' breed, actually," he tells her, and Tess raises her brow again. Up close now, he gets to appreciate her face a little better - and her overall physique. She's tall, almost tall enough to match him; a little bony though so he's guessing she doesn't get as much food as she needs.

Her face is a little bruised and scraped here and there, but it's a stubborn jaw and keen deep brown eyes that infatuates him - she's...she's pretty.

And she's tough.

She eyes him for a long moment, almost over her nose as she shifts her gun from one hand to another, and seems to go against her better judgement. "I'm headed west, by the hospital."

"I am too," he answers immediately; it's not his best lie, and he's sure she sees right through it, and it stuns him when she doesn't call him out on it - just walks on ahead.

He keeps up, a few paces behind her, and Tess glances him over her shoulder again.

"You got a name, or am I gonna have to call you Texas?"

(She keeps calling him Texas anyway, and does so for the next fifteen years.)

"Joel," he supplies. "I heard the fella callin' you Tess."

Tess inclines her head. "Sharp ears you got there. You any good with that gun of yours, or do you just walk around beating people into the ground with those arms of yours?" Joel pauses for a split second; was that a compliment?

"I'm a pretty good shot," he tells her, and keeps in stride with her briefly; only long enough to gesture to the place where he can only assume Sean had grabbed her - because it's bruising into four fingers. "You sure you're okay?"

Tess looks down at her arm, scowling somewhat before picking up her pace. "Had worse. So what brings you up this far North, Texas?"


	3. Chapter 3

It's a decent walk to where they need to be, and Joel learns that Tess is surprisingly talkative when she wants to be. He doesn't mind it; she makes up for his silence, though he answers her questions and asks her things too. He learns in that time that she's a black market smuggler; one of the best apparently.

He's heard whispers going around about someone matching her description - Tess runs the underground business just a little bit. Or she's starting to, and that's making a lot of people angry.

"Can't play the game if you can't keep up," she drawls at him, and takes a little running jump for a fence, clambering over it somewhat gracelessly.

He follows suit, huffing at her as he lands. "Y'know, I could've pushed you over."

She gives him a sidelong glance, smirking cheekily. "You're gonna have to find other ways of grabbing at my ass, Texas. I don't dish out on the first date." She takes off in a sprint, leaving Joel there gaping for a moment before he's rushing to catch up - to duck down beside her as the soldiers start to make their rounds.

The spotlight glances over them, they huddle lower behind a wall until the sound of wheels on gravel fade away, and Joel breathes out. "That was close."

"Relax, big guy." Tess touches him on the shoulder; the first time she's ever laid a hand on him. "We're here."

"Oh." He straightens to his feet, watching as Tess fumbles with the key to a dingy looking brownstone. He stands back, shifting uncertainly on his feet as she shoulders the door open, refraining from making an offer to help because he knows she'll just give him a look.

_(It's strange - he feels like he's known her forever.)_

"Well," she says then, as she gets the door open, slipping herself partly through it. "This is me." They stare at each other for a long, awkward moment, as Joel shuffles his feet and stuffs his hands in his pocket while Tess gnaws her lip and wonders what else she's supposed to say.

Does he want some kind of thanks? What _kind_ of thanks can she give him other than a verbal one and the fact that she spared his life? That should be more than enough thanks for him.

But he's not like the others though. He's nothing like Sean; the fact that he always kept one step behind her, pulled doors open or pushed chain link fence holes wider for her to slip through is quite a bit of a difference already.

That, and he basically walked her home because he thinks there are more Seans around the corner waiting to jump her.

And here she thought good old Southern-born gentlemen died out during her mother's time.

Vaguely she registers the sound of truck engines nearby; sees the spotlight reflecting on the buildings. They're closeby.

Sighing inwardly, she pulls the door wider. "You might as well come in. Rest your bones a little, old man."

It takes him by surprise so much so that he doesn't even take offense that she's ragging at his age. He'll learn later on though that he is a good deal older than her, and Tess will never hesitate to remind him.

(_Old man_ becomes a term of endearment to her; so does _Texas_ and _big guy_ and _dumbass_ sometimes.)

* * *

It's...a shitty place.

He can't even save it. There's nothing he can say to make up for it - it's just a dingy old room in the basement of the brownstone, filled with boxes of things and a thin old mattress sitting in the corner of the room closest to the only open window. A window barely big enough to look through, but he thinks it's more of an impromptu emergency escape more than a view.

He can't understand why knowing this bothers him so much. It's a brilliant idea; she's a smart woman and obviously someone who has her shit together, but Joel can't explain why the thought of her sitting alone in the dark, watching the shadows, listening for footsteps and finally falling asleep with her gun in her lap troubles him so much.

There isn't much food around, that much he knows.

Joel leans against one of the many shelves in the room, glancing into the boxes and things like that; watching as Tess rummages through one of the boxes closest to the mattress and starts reloading her gun. There's something in the way she's crouching down, shuffling bullets in her hand; tucking a strand of hair behind her ear distractedly as it gets in the way while she's filling her magazine.

He watches her eyes narrow at something on her wrist - scrapes and bruises he thinks, from her scuffle with Sean, and he's strangely enamored by it all. She seems so out of place in a world like this...and yet...so very in place that he can't imagine having found somebody else in her place.

"I know I said this earlier," she's telling him, and Joel tilts his head at her with interest. Tess seems to shift about uncomfortably on the mattress, and he feels his mouth twitch as she glances at him awkwardly. "But uh...thanks. About earlier. Thanks for helpin' me out."

It's clear Tess isn't used to saying thanks, but he takes it with an amiable sort of half-smile. "No problem," he replies, smirking slightly. "Ain't every day I get to save someone's ass. I'm usually the one puttin' an end to it."

She scoffs a little laugh at him, looking back down at her gun. Her fingers traces the ridges of it; memorizes the weight and feel of it in her hands for something to do other than to stare at Joel. He's a decent looking man; tall and definitely fit, and scruffy enough to be rugged looking instead of homeless.

The watch on his wrist is broken, but something dissuades her from mentioning it.

Maybe it's the way he's palming it self-consciously, standing in the corner, or maybe it's just Tess' own nature of keeping her nose out of other people's business.

She realizes that he's staring at her with a rather fixated look on his face, and Tess narrows her eyes at him with a curl of her mouth. "The hell are you starin' at, Texas?"

Joel blinks, taken aback at her blunt words. He feels his cheeks heating, and he scratches the back of his neck awkwardly before dropping his gaze. "Sorry," he mumbles earnestly. "I wasn't - I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, I was just - lookin' to make sure you wasn't hurt nowhere else," he tells her, and it flusters them both.

Tess shifts uncertainly; mouth twitching and brows pulling together as she stares at the man for a moment. It's not something she's accustomed to - the care, for the lack of a better word. That's something she's placed in her past, together with her parents and her home and college.

Anything resembling a normal life, this.

This man is worried about her, and he's known her for five fucking minutes.

"Don't think that I...that I like you or somethin'," she starts suddenly, licking her lips nervously as she darts an uncomfortable glance his way. "But uh...if I had to pick someone to play hero today, I'm...I'm kinda glad it was you."

He's very glad it was him, but he doesn't say it out loud because it'll make him sound even more like a creep, so he tilts his head thoughtfully, acknowledging this. "Though I wish you hadn't been in a situation to need rescuing from," he tells her, and Tess accepts this with a slight shrug.

She's smirking at him over her shoulder again, and Joel wonders if this will be a constant thing - her switch from dark to light in a blink. "But then we wouldn't have met, now would we, Texas?"

_(He'll think back in the coming years, whenever he's sitting on his battered old couch with Tess asleep in his lap from the whiskey or the shock of new wounds, and quietly thank his brother's sense of morality for pissing him of._

_He'll also think back on Sean, and dream of having been the one to kill him.)_


	4. Chapter 4

**Joel proves to be a rather useful man to Tess even from the get go. Call in Partner Instincts or Joel Is Possessive of His Women.**

* * *

He gets home at the crack of dawn. Tommy demands to know where he's been, but Joel's so bone tired he can't stand to handle his brother's almost hysterical questions before he collapses on his mattress.

He dreams of Sarah and easier times.

And of a new face; a little bruised and rough around the edges and a little tan, smirking at him.

It's the longest and deepest he's slept in a long time, and he's not sure if it's the exhaustion or the temptation of dreaming his dreams just a little longer.

He hasn't had a dream in months.

It's the first dream in a river of nightmares.

* * *

He fixates on her.

He can't help but to indulge the subconscious part of him that wants to know more about this new person; this creature of habit and disorganization. Of danger and death and all things exhilarating to him for reasons that bewilders him on all ends.

Perhaps it's the way she looks at the world around them and the hell it's turned into and regards it with such indifference and flippancy. As if it wouldn't have made a difference to her if the world was still right side up again; it fascinates him to think of what kind of a person she would've been.

He's never been one to dwell on the past - it's not healthy.

But he can't shake the idea of wanting to know her better; of understanding her motives in the same way Tommy struggles with understanding his own.

She's found a way under his skin, like a virus; like a spore.

It terrifies him to think of how easily he's willing to surrender.

* * *

He tries to look for her; Tommy notices the change.

"You're lookin' like you did that time you wanted to get Jane Hopper to go to prom with you," he tells Joel, and eyes his brother suspiciously one day when Joel fidgets and fusses and seems to find every reason to be anywhere near the hospital.

Joel scowls at him, grants him no answer because there's been no question posed out loud. Instead he vanishes after shift, a common occurrence as a Hunter, and it's a role he's used to his advantage this time around.

No one's seen Tess in the few days since. Common knowledge is that she doesn't stay in one place for long, and it's confirmed when he finds his way back to her brownstone from memory alone, and stands in front of her door for fifteen minutes to unanswered knocking.

Eventually he breaks into the house; she won't miss it either way. The shitty little room she's been calling home is emptied out and thrashed - it takes him a moment to realize that it's done on purpose and not by anyone else. The very thought makes his blood simmer dangerously, but like a feral beast he can't sense anyone else but Tess in the room.

He crouches by the thin mattress, thinks that he could see the shape of her body curved into it in the right light and angle. It's been cold lately; his mind wanders to little thoughts of how she's been keeping warm, and if she's been keeping well.

There's something sticking out between a tear in the mattress, lodged to a spring. A note of some sort, the date of the day they met, and written in rather haphazard but artistically feminine hand:_ Drop went south - ammo down twenty, guns down five. Sean is dead tho. SOB deserved it._

_Joel._

He trails the words, fingers the dog-ears before he pockets it with something of a secretive and boyish gesture. It's of no value to him then, and yet it will remain tucked into his jacket pocket for a good three years before he finds it again and moves it into his newly assembled pile of little Tess notes.

There isn't much else left behind that's useful to his search, and Joel takes a moment to think. Standing in the middle of the small room, his eyes slip shut, and he breathes. Images runs through his mind; Tess moving about restlessly, fussing with boxes of merchandise to deal with, rifling through her mess of similar notes to find the right one. Empty shell casings scattering the floor as she reloads her gun - the nervous quiver of her fingers against the metal.

(The images aren't real, she'll tell him later. There was no quiver and there were no empty shell casings - just her and a box of goods and a gun.)

(She'll admit eventually that there was a quiver and there fear, and he'll rest easy at her side with the reassurance to them both that she'll never feel the same things again. Not with him around.)

He loses his patience, wipes the image clean from his head with a harsh growl and the sudden breaking of an empty bottle of beer against the wall.

Tess has already made herself the bait.

It's time to go hunting.

* * *

Something drives him to revisit the building.

A strange sort of wistful melancholy that pushes him to climb the same dilapidated steps, step over the mangled and rotting bodies of the creatures he'd killed that night. It's a deja vu of events; everything is the same and yet nothing is. The smell is pungent and thick, the room feels full of nothing and everything unseen, and he creeps in the too-still silence towards the window once more.

Moonlight flits through the seams of the windows; he settles in place in the shadows, crouching against the wall. He hears the voices, recognizes the low and flatly dulcet tone. There is no immediate threat that he can ascertain, and so for now, he sits and he waits.

Like the hunter he is, Joel waits.

_"Damn, Tess. I thought they were lyin' about what you did to Sean."_

_"Obviously they weren't, if you're standing on him like a carpet."_

_"Heh. Well he sure as hell isn't someone we'll be missing anytime soon, now will we?"_

_"Just shut up and get down to business already. I don't have all day."_

He listens close; there's a shard of glass in his hand that reflects in the moonlight like a mirror for him, and he sees the shape of Tess and two men. One crouches by a box, inspecting the things she has to offer, and the other stands by and keeps guard - eyeing Tess as if she resembles some form of predator.

Unpredictable and fatal.

The crouching man straightens; Joel doesn't like the way he's smiling at Tess. "Always one to deliver, aren't you, Tess?"

The tension grows - Joel bristles in his place the same way Tess' hackles rise where she stands. Blood runs freely in his hand where the glass cuts deep into his palm; he doesn't realize he's gripping it so until the sting starts and he replaces it with his gun instead.

Though the thought of slitting this man's throat is also tempting.

"Just pay up and we're done here," Tess demands, and he hears the edge in her voice harsh enough to sense that she doesn't like the direction things seem to be headed. "You don't wanna mess around with me, Ted. Sean tried that and he's got half a face left."

Ted clicks his tongue at her, and Joel feels his jaw tic dangerously. "Tess, you're paranoid." The cajoling tone makes him growl in his throat, and Joel feels his muscles pull tight to pounce. He doesn't, not yet. "I'm nothing like Sean, sweetcheeks. I'm a gentleman."

_"You're gonna be a gentleman without a face or a nutsack if you take another step._" He rise to his feet; a shadow in the darkness that materializes like a ghost. They start, even Tess, but she's not the one holding a gun to his chest as he steps out of the shadows; large and dangerous and glowering dangerously at them.

"What the fuck is this?!" Ted sputters, whirling incredulously to Tess even as his eyes dart nervously from Joel to her and back again. He doesn't feel the reassurance to take his eyes off Joel for long - not with the predatory gleam in the bigger man's eyes or the way his mouth is curling into a snarl. "What the fuck, Tess, you said this was a solo thing!"

Tess aims her gun straight for his head, sneering at him. "And yet you brought your little body guard with you anyway." She glances at Joel; sharp and reprimanding - curious underneath it all. Of all the places to think to find her...?

Joel folds his arms over his chest, a move that seems to terrify Ted and impress Tess for reasons underlying. "You'd best pay the lady and get a move on, little man. Before I find a reason to hit you for assaultin' my partner."

"I didn't even touch her -!" Ted wails, and realizes the words Joel speaks. "What - Tess doesn't have a _partner_." He shakes his head incredulously, staring at the woman; his only response is an arched brow. "Everyone knows Tess works alone, man. It's not her style!"

Joel glances over his head to Tess; their eyes meet and hold for a long, jolting moment. Sharp and bright, her eyes narrow at him a moment, but Joel keeps his gaze unwavering to her face no matter how strong the urge is to look away guiltily.

He's not sure what he feels when Tess shrugs again, raising her gun steadier at Ted's head.

"Not anymore."

* * *

**We end here for the official origins! part, but I'll be writing an epilogue to it to finish off the 5-part of the fic.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Last chapter of this series; Joel and Tess' first time 'together' ifuknowwhatimsayin**

**M for adult things and y'know. Sex.**

* * *

She's barely twenty one.

He learns this the first time they drink together; a good deal gives them enough ration cards for the month and some extra perks because this customer is fond of Tess, and Joel doesn't think to complain when she pulls out a bottle of Wild Turkey from her backpack.

"You old enough to drink this, even?" he asks her, and Tess raises an eyebrow at the way he's nearly caressing the bottle like a newborn.

She shrugs, laying two chipped mugs on the coffee table in front of him. "I'm old enough to do a lot of things, Tex. Now give it." She gestures for the bottle, flexing her fingers impatiently when the man seems reluctant to want to let it go, and thinks it amusing when he finally hands it over.

She pours them both a good dose, holding her mug to his before downing it. Tess finds Joel wrinkling his nose at her when she lowers her mug, arching an eyebrow at him over the rim. "What?"

"Y'take it to the face like a frat boy, is what," he grumbles, nursing his little purple and pink mug in his large hands. It's got pictures of puppies on it, and Tess almost wants to laugh at how out of place it looks in Joel's hands, but she doesn't because he's got a strange look on his face. He brings the mug to his lips finally, savoring the taste of the bourbon on his tongue with quiet sigh.

"Shame they don't make it like they used to," he murmurs, but by the time they're halfway through the bottle, Joel can't think to focus his eyes on anything let alone reminisce about the good ol' days.

Tess is sprawled on the floor across from him; spread out long and pale in the moonlight. Her high cheekbones are colored pink, her mouth curled into a lazy, hazy smirk while he sits enamored and maybe a lot tipsier than he'd like to admit, watching her from the couch.

"Staring's rude, didn't you know?" she murmurs to him, eyes still languidly shut as she curls an arm under her head and tilts her head to look at him. The moonlight accentuates the sharp angles of her face; her cheekbones, her jaw, her heady eyes that glaze from the bourbon. The way her neck looks in the low lighting, the curve of her bony clavicle reminds him of how much thinner she is - how much younger.

He rumbles in his throat, finishes off the last of his mug of bourbon. "Just thinkin' that you can't hold your liquor," he says, and Tess scoffs from the floor, bending a leg up at the knee and giving Joel a look that makes him swallow nervously.

"I can hold my liquor just fine, thank you," she drawls at him, and it's not a slur in her words. Her eyes glitter in the moonlight; black as night and just about as deadly to Joel. "I just don't want to."

He doesn't remember how he got to his knees on the floor by her side; doesn't remember how his fingers start to stroke her skin, softer than he would've thought. He can't remember how she got his shirt off, or how he got hers, but what he can remember though, clear as day, is the taste of her.

She kisses just as fiercely as she leads him; she tastes like bourbon and something strangely familiar - something he'll learn to recognize as the taste of Tess. Her hands touch him like she wants to claim him, mark him; he touches her like he wants to memorize her, tame her - touches her like she's porcelain and he's a bull in a china shop.

When her hands slip into his jeans, he pulls back briefly, only long enough to just barely make out her face in the drunken haze of lust. "Should we - are you - we shouldn't -." She's kissing him again before he can get his thoughts together, and under her touch and into her mouth he forgets what exactly he was going to say anyway.

_She's much too young for him._

He slips inside her with more force than he would've wanted; the physical needs of his body is starting to take over his mind, he bares his teeth into her shoulder when she moans. She's so tight around him it must hurt, but she's so warm and wet and familiar that he can't think of anything else but the feel of her around him, against him, underneath him.

"Fuck," she sighs, when his teeth sink into her skin again, and his hips flex harder against her. There's something underlying in her tone; tight and edged with something like pain amidst the drunk pleasure.

He grunts as he thrusts forward again; swears when her nails dig into his skin and she whimpers under him.

_Way too young._

He's almost twice her size; she's something between a waif and a bony tomboy just growing into her body, but her hips, her breasts, her skin - it's a woman under him.

Ten years, fifteen years younger, almost twenty years too young - but she's a woman.

That's all that matters now.

She cums with a breathless jumble of swears and his name like a prayer, gripping him tight and trembling in his arms. He buries his face into her hair, groaning low in his throat at the almost delicate way she shivers and whimpers and keens; the way her nails dig into his arms.

He pulls out just as he feels himself twitch, gritting his teeth in a growl into her hair as he fists himself against her stomach, spilling himself on the soft skin of her stomach in harsh, draining spurts. The arm he uses to brace himself trembles from the weight, and Joel sags against her with a breathless grunt, the both of them panting in the thick air for breath.

His head is still swimming by the time he registers the wet mess he's made between them, but Tess doesn't let him pull away when he starts to push himself off her. "Tess, I gotta get up -." She hums at him, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders, and Joel feels her lips pressing against his pulse; he shudders.

"Just a little longer," she murmurs into his skin, and the sleepy slur of her words wins him over despite himself. So he lowers himself carefully over her again; a big and warm teddy bear to cuddle up to. The floor is hardly anything comfortable, and he feels a niggling sense of regret that their first time wasn't on a bed or nearly as satisfactory as he thinks it should've been, but Tess presses herself into him again, and Joel thinks that maybe it's just as well that it's not perfect.

Perfect is a relative term anyway.


End file.
